Funding religious schools fine to most Albertans

Parents appreciate having diversity of educational options, Beth Green says.

Alberta has long been an internationally noted model for helping parents to access diverse schooling options for their kids.

It’s one of three provinces with fully funded public Catholic schools.

While its charter schools don’t get capital funding, they do receive full operational funding.

And even Alberta’s independent schools get 70 cents on the dollar compared to the per-student operating grants government schools receive.

That means Alberta parents have some of the easiest access in Canada to schooling that matches their children’s specific needs. Albertans’ support for having a diversity of options certainly comes through in some of the most recent polling on the issue.

Think-tank Cardus Education teamed up with the Angus Reid Institute to poll almost 2,000 Canadians on a series of issues, including whether they support government funding for faithbased and religious schools.

Not surprisingly, the results in Alberta show a full 70 per cent of respondents in the province back government funding for religious schools, many of which would be independent.

In fact, 43 per cent of Albertans back full funding for religious schools funding that is “equal to support for public schools.” Another 27 per cent of people in Alberta wanted at least partial funding. Only 30 per cent opposed government funding for religious or faith-based schools — one of the lowest levels of opposition in the country.

These findings make sense when you consider Alberta’s educational landscape.

Parents in the province obviously like having a diversity of educational options available to them. They prove it by often choosing religious schools for their kids. Almost a quarter of the province’s students attend a public Catholic school.

An additional 4.4 per cent of students attend independent schools, more than

61 per cent of which are religiously affiliated schools.

In the vast majority of cases, these aren’t elite schools for the privileged. They are small schools, often in a rural or semi-rural setting.

If the mainstream view in Alberta is support for some level of government funding of religious and faith-based schools, what about the minority view?

The poll doesn’t get at why opposition to funding exists.

But if it’s based on concerns about the type of Canadians such schools turn out, that’s worth a closer look.

Religious independent schools in Canada, a recent study shows, continue to produce excellent contributing citizens. The 2016 Cardus Education Survey found that Canadian religious school graduates, such as those from evangelical Protestant schools, exhibit a wide variety of civic contributions. Compared to public school graduates, for example, they donate more money, are more likely to volunteer for arts and cultural organizations, are more willing to give blood, and are just as likely to be politically active as their public school peers.

Albertans see the benefits of having a diversity of educational options available for their children.

They show it when they take advantage of the variety that’s on offer through strong enrolment in religious schools.

And they confirm it when they express some of the strongest support in the country for continued provincial government funding of religious schools — both public and independent.

Whatever other debates and challenges exist on questions of school funding, Albertans’ opinions are as clear as the mountain air: Government funding of religious schools lets parents make the best choices for their children’s education.